KPU Community Impact Award 2026
Recipient 1: Cougar Creek Streamkeepers
Congratulations to Cougar Creek Streamkeepers (CCS) for being chosen to receive Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Community Impact Award for 2026.
For more than 40 years, CCS has helped care for an important local waterway with extraordinary dedication. Cougar Creek flows through the living lands and waters connected to KPU Surrey, within a region south of the stɑl̓əw̓ (the Fraser River) that overlaps with the unceded traditional and ancestral lands of Coast Salish peoples, including the Kwantlen, Musqueam, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen, Qayqayt, and Kwikwetlem peoples. As part of this connected watershed, it is both a vital ecological system and a place of learning, stewardship, and connection.
Through collaborations with KPU Wild Spaces, the Office of Sustainability, faculty, staff, and students, CCS has led field trips, EcoWalks, salmon spawning events, guest lectures, and interpretive walks for students across biology, business, fine arts, geography, criminology, and IDEA, bringing learning to life. CCS has also supported research on salmon health, climate resilience, and watershed vulnerability, helping create meaningful opportunities for community-connected and interdisciplinary learning at KPU.
For KPU, CCS models the kind of work that reminds us what strong community partnership can be: generous with knowledge, grounded in place, and committed to the long term.
From left to right: Deborah Jones (Rain Gardens Coordinator), Pete Willows (Salmonid Enhancement Coordinator), Bob Scanlon (Instream Enhancement Coordinator), Brett Favaro (Dean, Faculty of Science)
Recipient 2: SHER Pride
Congratulations to SHER Pride for being chosen to receive Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Community Impact Award for 2026.
For years, SHER Pride has brought care, courage, and cultural leadership into the KPU community. At KPU, student experience is shaped not only in classrooms, labs, and studios, but also through the relationships built beyond our campuses, and SHER Pride is an outstanding example of that kind of partnership. Through film screenings, dialogue, arts-based programming, and community-engaged collaboration, the organization has opened meaningful conversations about identity, gender diversity, family, culture, and belonging. SHER Pride has also supported student leadership through youth recognition and awards, and contributed to community-based research that strengthens scholarship while keeping it grounded in lived experience and community knowledge.That spirit of partnership is reflected in the mural commissioned by SHER Pride for KPU Surrey, created by queer Punjabi visual artist Jag Nagar, bringing together symbols of South Asian identity, queer and trans pride, and shared belonging.
This is what meaningful community partnership looks like. It goes beyond a single event or initiative, deepening learning and helping shape a university community that is more inclusive, responsive, and grounded in the lives of the people it serves.
From left to right: Shelley Boyd, Dean Faculty of Arts, {}, Ash (Co-Founder and Executive Director), Amar Sangha (Founder and Manager of Finance), Annie (President), Greg Chan (Faculty and Nominator), Susan (Manager of Volunteers, Sundar Prize Film Festival), {}, Bhavesh (Executive and Finance Assistant and Videographer)